Reviews

The Russian Ministry of Foreign Affairs informed the press that visa free travel between Russia and Israel will be possible starting from the 20th of September 2008.

The agreement was signed earlier this year, however, both parties had to update some local laws in order for this agreement to be implemented.

Russia presented the new olympic games uniform. The designs are reminiscent of the 1950s, and the hats remind the Soviet leader Nikita Khruschev's style.

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Back in the Soviet union we used to have this popular TV program by Anatoly Kashpirovsky where he was hypnotizing the whole country through TV. You could see people falling into trance, sleepwalking, raising their hands when Kashpirowski told them to...

Kashpirovsky had this heavy gaze and used to count slowly and tell people that "everything is good", "your headache is gone", "you feel light and happy"... Imagine all this was happening at the end of 80s, when the Soviet union was collapsing and some people didn't have much to eat. The best of escapist TV ever!

The Russian singer Dima Bilan won Eurovision song contest, which took place in Belgrade (Serbia) this weekend.



Eurovision is baaad. It has ambitions to be the Olympic Games of music, but really it's a contest for second-sort European pop music. Unfortunately the quality of music is so ridiculous that the whole thing looks surreal. The idea is that people watch it on TV and vote for their favorite song, but as the majority of the audience comes from Russia and Eastern Europe it was quite easy for Dima Bilan to win.

So, who is Dima Bilan then?

This is a new revolutionary feature offered by Way to Russia in partnership with Continental.

Basically, it allows you to connect any 2 phones in the world by sending a text message or through the internet.

All you need to do is to go to http://phonecards.waytorussia.net/smscall/, log in (or register), and you will see the instructions.

Imagine, you are somewhere in the middle of Russia and need to make a phonecall to Moscow or, for example, to the US. Just ask the phonenumber from your host / hotel and send a text from your mobile with that number and the number you need to call to. Within seconds you'll receive a phonecall (all incoming calls are free in Russia) and the other party will receive a phonecall as well. Voila.

One morning, at the start of May 2005, Mark Cundy set out on his daily stroll – pushing a pram full of his belongings on a 19 km saunter from the Moscow suburban town of Krasnogorsk to Red Square. By itself, it was a quite a robust workout to be sure. What was far more impressive was that he had walked all the way from London to get there.

In fact, the walk from London to Moscow was just the first leg of a ‘world walk’, which also saw Cundy saunter from Melbourne to Sydney as the second leg and from the west coast to the east coast of the USA. While the walk was done for the benefit of Cancer Research UK, more than anything Cundy set out on this amazing journey in pursuit of a dream and a sense of achievement. And now he has documented his incredible adventures in the soon to be released book, A Man and a Pram.

Check out this music video from a Soviet star singer Magomaev. They used to know how to make psychodelic stuff back then...

There was an interesting article in The Moscow Times newspaper about a Chilean woman who is in jail because of old Russian souvenirs. She bought some old Soviet medals at a flea market in Voronezh and was detained when she tried to take her flight to Munich.

Yesterday I registered a Russian visa for my friend from Germany at a Russian post office, so below is the first-hand step-by-step explanation of the whole process, which is quite new (fully working since this summer).

According to the new rules any Russian citizen with "propiska" (registration) can register a foreigner at his/her apartment at a local police station or any post office. The whole procedure takes about an hour (because of the forms you need to fill out and queues) and costs about €5.

Another alternative is to contact your travel agency and they will be able to do it for a fee (usually $20 to $50 US). If you're staying in a hotel, they'll usually do it for free.

If you don't have a registration, the border officials will not bother you anymore, as it's not their responsibility to check the registration -- they'd only need the migration card back. However, if you get stopped by police without registration you may be fined 2000 to 5000 Rubles ($75 to $200 US). They don't usually stop people often on the street (hasn't happened yet with my friend), but if you go to the main touristic spots the chances to be stopped for a routine check are quite high.

So here's what we did...

Comedy Club is a very popular comedy show from Russia. They feature short sketches and performances and some of them are really funny. Lots of them about about drugs and sex though. Here's one of the short shows, you will be able to understand it even if you don't speak Russian. Warning: watch it until the end, so you get the punchline.